


When I Needed You

by firefright



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 06:47:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9423158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/pseuds/firefright
Summary: On the night Blockbuster dies, Dick goes through one of the worst experiences of his life. But this time he's not alone, this time someone comes to save him. Someone familiar, though he doesn't figure that part out until much later.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Another one-shot this week (I swear have updates for a couple of my multichapters written, they just need some more tweaking before they can be posted). This was written for the prompt 'Assault' from a H/C Bingo prompt, and is basically a not-quite fix-it fic for what Tarantula did to Dick in the Nightwing comics based on the 'what if Jason happened to be hanging around Bludhaven spying on Dick at the time'.
> 
> Warnings firmly in place for a non-graphic description of canon female-on-male rape. Please read responsibly.

Dick feels like he’s being pulled to pieces, scattered to the four winds as he stumbles upwards from the fire escape and onto the flat roof of the apartment building where the final confrontation with Blockbuster had taken place. His mind, usually so sharp and focused, now nothing more than a jumble of horrible thoughts, circling round and round in a maelstrom of guilt and shame that even the current downpour drenching Bludhaven isn’t strong enough to wash away.

He can’t think, he can’t even _breathe_.

The gunshot, fired from a barrel that is still warm in the hands of its wielder, is a terrible drumbeat sounding in his ears, echoed over and over and _over_ again in every single drop of rain. It won’t leave him alone; morphing into his own personal tell-tale heart beating beneath the floorboards with the terrible knowledge of what he’s done. Of what he let happen. He...

_He let it happen._

Stumbling suddenly, Dick grasps at the front of his uniform, at his chest. Despite the frantic working of his lungs and the heaving of his chest, he can’t breathe still. And the more he struggles, the more he panics about it.

Why, why can’t he breathe?

He has to calm down. If he can just calm down and _think_ for a moment, maybe he can fix this. Maybe—

Attempting to close his eyes against the wind and rain swiftly turns out to be a mistake, because instead of comforting darkness, all he can see is fire. All he can taste is the smoke in the back of his throat as Haly’s big top burns to the ground - a nightmarish vision laid over the broken rubble of his apartment building once Giz and Mouse’s explosives were done with it and the screaming from the audience starts to mix in with the beat of the gunshot, like some hellish record on repeat.

_His fault. It’s all his fault._

It’s his fault that his tenants are dead. That there’s nothing but ashes left of both his first and last homes because he was too careless. Because he pushed himself too hard in pursuit of the big picture and forgot to look out for the small things: the warning signs he should have seen miles before Blockbuster got his oversized fingers into the people and places Dick cared about most.

Now they’re gone. All of them. People are dead because of him. Not just one or two, but dozens, a hundred. All because he wasn’t good enough in the end. Not as good as he needed to be. Not as good as—

With that last stricken thought, Dick finally gives in to the greedy pull of gravity. His formerly relentless energy finally meeting its inevitable end, just as Alfred and Bruce and Barbara had tried to warn him it would. There’s blood on his gloves that the rain won’t rush away. Blockbuster’s blood. The same blood that’s still pouring out from the bullet hole in the crime lord’s skull down on the fire escape below. Dick’s finger didn’t pull the trigger, but he knows that as far the world - and his own conscience - will be concerned from this moment onward he’s just as guilty as the one who did.

“I’m sorry. So sorry, Bruce… I…” he gasps desperately, fighting the steel vice that’s closing in even tighter around his chest to apologise. He can feel his mentor’s eyes on him even here. The heavy weight of judgement flowing like a poisonous river directly out of Gotham. “I failed you. I…”

_I failed everyone._

Then, suddenly, _she’s_ there, touching his face with fingers that are startlingly warm compared to the rain: Catalina Flores, the new Tarantula. Dick can see her lips moving as she talks to him but he barely hears it. Can’t really understand the words as he continues to apologise; to Bruce, to her. To the dead.

Not until she pushes him down and moves to straddle his waist.

Then he understands. Then he panics even more.

“Don’t… touch me… don’t…”

But whatever protests he manages to gasp out, she doesn’t listen. Her hands are alien things, foreign objects sliding down his suit and probing until she finds the catches to open it. Inwardly Dick is panicking, but he still can’t push through the fog in his mind. He can’t move or _act_ to stop her as she touches him, whispering endearments and reassurances down at him through the rain before shedding her own clothing.

 _No_. He doesn’t want this.

 _No_. He needs her to stop.

No. No, no _no -_

“Get the fuck off him!”

At first, Dick mistakes the dark shadow that knocks Catalina away from him for Bruce. His vision is distorted, and his mind broken enough that he’s more terrified in the moment of what his former mentor is going to say to him than he is of what was just happening: the judgement he’s going to have to face for his failures. It’s a fear that continues even as the shadow moves out of his line of sight after Catalina, and it becomes clear that, whoever they are, they’re not wearing a cape.

There’s shouting, the sounds of fists meeting flesh and he… he knows he should be doing something now. Moving at the very least, but his body - usually so strong and fleet-footed - won’t obey him anymore. All he can do is stay where he is, staring up at the dark sky and feeling the rain run over his face, too numb even to reach down and cover himself.

“Hey. Hey, D - Nightwing. You in there?”

Dick blinks. In between one moment and the next, silence has fallen, and the shadow is there in front of him once again. It takes tremendous effort to concentrate, but eventually the blurred shape resolves itself into the hooded figure of a man in a black leather jacket, with a red scarf tied around the lower half of his face, a hood covering his hair, and worried blue-green eyes peering down at him from beneath it.

“Hey.” the man says again, deep voice cracking with concern, “It’s okay. She’s gone, she can’t hurt you anymore.”

He still can’t talk; trying only results in a keening whimper escaping his lips. His body is paralysed, and he can’t… can’t…

_What has he done?_

“Hey, hey. Shh, just breathe. Come on, just focus on breathing. That’s all you gotta do right now, Nightwing. Nothing else, okay? Just breathe.”

A hand touches his face and he flinches back from it, as those fingers unknowingly echo the path Catalina’s took only minutes before. Immediately it’s snatched away, but too late. He can feel the crawling patterns of her hands against his body all over again; his heart beating quicker in his chest as he gasps uselessly until it feels like he’s on the edge of fainting.

“Shit.” The man whispers, half-talking to himself. “Shit. You’re really going to make me do this, aren’t you?” His head shakes and water droplets fall off his hood. “Okay, okay. Come on, N, up and at ‘em before the cops get their sorry asses over here.”

His hands move down to the opening of Dick’s suit, motions quick and businesslike as he fastens it back up with the least amount of touching possible, muttering apologies the entire time. None of which help much; Dick still shakes and flinches before strong hands take hold of him by his elbows instead and use that grip to haul him up onto his feet.

“There you go, easy now.”

His arm is slung around broad shoulders, while the stranger keeps a firm grip about his waist, making sure he stays upright so that he’s mostly carrying Dick towards the rooftop’s edge rather than dragging him.

“Who…?” Dick finally manages to say as they stand on the precipice, his voice barely audible over the steady patter of raindrops on the roof, “Who are…?”

The man pauses, before reaching and pulling out a grapnel gun that looks very similar to Dick’s own from within the confines of his jacket. He waits so long that Dick starts to think he isn’t going to answer at all.

“No one.” is what he says in the end, before they’re swinging out over the street with Dick held in tightly against his side.

“I’m no one.”

 

*

 

He must pass out after that, because the next thing Dick knows, he’s waking up to the sight of dank wooden rafters above him, and the protruding springs of a musty old couch digging into his back.

The stink from the old fabric and what smells like cat urine hits him almost before anything else does, including the continued sound of the rain falling outside, and the realisation that a large leather jacket has been draped across his torso in a paltry attempt at keeping him warm.

Weakly he reaches pulls his arm out from underneath the jacket to touch the back of it. The leather is worn and buttery soft beneath his gloved fingers; obviously well loved if he had to take a guess, and soaked in the smell of cigarette smoke underneath the lingering dampness of the rain.

It’s the jacket the man was wearing, he thinks dimly. The man who saved him from… from…

Dick pulls away from the memory. The trauma is still too near and visceral for him to be able to bear facing it at the moment.

With a soft grunt, he first pushes himself up onto his elbows from the arm of the couch, then makes the larger effort to move into a sitting position. With that movement comes the awareness that his hair is still slightly damp against his cheeks, which leads him to the conclusion that he can’t have been unconscious all that long, possibly just enough for his saviour to get him here. Wherever _here_ is.

And speaking of his saviour…

“Hello?” Dick calls hoarsely, looking around the interior of the room he’s found himself in. If he had to take a guess he’d say it’s some kind of loft, based on the sloped roof and rafters of the ceiling above him, lit only by a single weak bulb. The floor is bare wood too, the walls devoid of any decoration except the occasional cobweb, and the only exit he can see is a staircase leading downwards at the far end of the room across from him.

Not reassuring. Not reassuring at all. One exit means limited options for escape; an almost certain chance of running into company unless he’s very, very lucky, and—

Dick bites down hard on his lip, trying to force himself back from the edge of spiralling into another panic attack. He doesn’t even know if there is any reason to panic now, not when for all intensive purposes the man who brought him here had apparently done so out of an intention to help. Though he could be wrong about that. His life lately has been…Hell. A nightmare. The worst week of his life, which is saying something given his previous history.

He’s lost everything again: his home, his friends. He’d spent last night sleeping on a fire escape under newspapers, and then just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse…

_A gunshot he didn’t step in front of. The life running out of that monstrous body. Hands pulling open his suit and…_

Dick gasps, before burying his hands in the folds of the leather jacket, holding the material up and pressing his face in against its collar. With that simple motion, the smell of cigarettes replaces the smell of blood; oddly familiar, and comforting.

How long he stays like that, breathing in a stranger’s scent, he’s not sure, but eventually the sound of creaking footsteps on the stairs forces him to look up again.

“Oh, hey. You’re uh, you’re awake then.”

The stranger is stood watching him from the opposite side of the room. He’s still wearing the dark hoodie Dick remembers, with the same red scarf wrapped around the lower half of his face - only missing the leather jacket that’s now in Dick’s hands. Here, he seems much more awkward than he did outside, broad shoulders tugged up to his ears and fists curled in by his thighs. His body language the only giveaway to what he must be feeling, since he’s done such a good job of concealing his expression otherwise.

Dick’s fingers tighten around the jacket as he tries to do a mental rundown of the equipment he still has left on him; something he should have done the moment he woke up, rather than now.

(Sloppy, _again.)_

His uniform is still all in place, as is his mask, that’s good. His gauntlets with what’s left of his smoke pellets, lockpicks, and wingdings are still there too, as are what he keeps concealed in his boots. The only thing he can find that’s missing are his escrima sticks, which would have been an obvious discomforting weight digging into his back when he woke up on the couch if they were still in their holsters.

Did he drop them? Were they taken away? He can’t remember, it’s all such a terrible blur.

“Yeah.” he says eventually, aware the silence is drawing further and further out. “I am.”

“Good. You kind of…” Folding his arms, the man leans back against a banister Dick wouldn’t trust to hold his own weight, let alone that of a man who looks to be at least a couple inches taller than him and maybe a couple dozen pounds heavier. “Wasn’t expecting you to pass out on me back there.”

“I wasn’t exactly expecting to pass out either.” Dick admits back to him. He draws his legs up closer to his chest from the opposite arm of the couch. “You… you saved me, didn’t you?”

The stranger shrugs, looking down at the floor between his feet.

“Thank you.”

He means them well, but the words seem to have an adverse effect on their recipient. He looks even more uncomfortable than he did before, continuing to direct his eyes towards the floor rather than at Dick. “It was nothing.”

It was definitely not nothing. Not nothing at all. Not when Tarantula had… he has to bow his head again against the urge to be sick, which he’s sure his saviour wouldn’t appreciate him doing over his jacket. But the smell of the tobacco-laden leather helps somehow, despite Dick never having been a fan of the smell of cigarettes previously.

When he gathers himself together enough to look up again, it’s to find that he’s being watched even more carefully than before. “You okay?” he’s asked.

“Fine, I… I’m sorry. You didn’t have to—”

“Bullshit I didn’t have to.” The guy says, the guttural vowels of what Dick is almost positive is a lower Gotham accent becoming more pronounced when he swears. “You needed help, I gave it. That’s all there is to it. You don’t have to apologise for a damn thing.”

Not true, Dick thinks, mind flashing back to Blockbuster. There’s a lot he has to apologise for.

But rather than say sorry again, or continue to focus on recent events, he makes an effort to move onto more pressing questions. “So uh, where am I?”

“Don’t worry, you’re still in Bludhaven. I haven’t kidnapped you or anything.”

“I wasn’t saying that you had. I just wanted to know.”

The man shrugs. “It’s just an empty house on the edge of town. Best place I could think to bring you.”

“And you are?”

The question is innocent enough, but it brings the tension right back up in the room.

“I’m no one.” Is the answer he gets, the same one he was given before he passed out back on the rooftop. “At least, no one you need to go worrying your pretty head about.”

Dick’s not so sure about that. Avoidance is usually a giant red flag in these situations, but he doesn’t want to go upsetting his rescuer again either, not when they’re already both on edge.

Unfortunately for him, his next question isn’t particularly well thought out in that regard either. “Okay. Well if that’s true, then why did you save me?”

“Are you fucking _kidding_ me?” It’s hard to tell incredulity through the hood and scarf covering the man’s face, but the widening and then narrowing of his green-tinted eyes is telltale enough. “What that… that bitch was doing…” his fisted hands tremble. “Fuck you if you think a need a personal connection with anyone to get in the way of something like that.”

Dick tries not to recoil back against the couch when his voice rises. “Sorry. Sorry, I just…” He looks down, and though he doesn’t mean it to, laughter bubbles out of him hysterically. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that. I’ve had… I’ve had a really bad week. Not a lot of things are making sense to me right now.”

“Yeah?” Mr. No One’s voice is softer now. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Dick shrugs jerkily. “Don’t worry about it, it’s my fault. All of it. Everything is… I fucked up. I completely fucked up.”

The floorboards creak underfoot as his rescuer steps forwards, and there’s something about the motion that makes Dick think he’s doing it deliberately. That if he wanted to, he could be as silent as a church mouse during communion. He has that kind of trained grace to him that Dick recognises as only belonging to a select group of people.

“What happened earlier wasn’t.”

When Dick looks up at him he stops moving forwards. At this proximity, the varying shades of blue in the stranger’s eyes are almost more pronounced than the green. “I didn’t stop her.”

“From what? Shooting an evil monster who deserved it?” His voice is contrarily both harsh and gentle at the same time. “And even if you’re in the wrong for that, it doesn’t excuse what she did to you after.”

He flashes back to warm thighs squeezing his hips, a hand invading the confines of his suit. Her voice in his ear, assuring him everything would be okay when he tried to tell her no.

It’s not his fault. It’s not his fault. He knows it’s not his fault, but…

This time he really is going to be sick.

Dick has the presence of mind to turn his head to the side as he pitches over the edge of the couch, vomiting onto the floor rather than his lap and his new friend’s jacket. It’s mostly bile since he’s barely eaten anything in the last twenty-four hours, and the scalding taste rips at the back of his throat with every heave.

“Shit.” he dimly hears the stranger say. “Shit, shit shit shit. Hold on.”

Footsteps again, moving rapidly away and then coming back. The floorboards creak with the weight of someone heavy kneeling down next to him.

“Nightwing, I’m going to touch you now, okay? Is it okay if I touch you?”

Gasping for breath, he manages to acknowledge the request with a shallow nod.

Hands - large hands, strong hands - gently grasp his shoulders. They’re nothing like the slim feminine ones he remembers touching him before, which helps immensely as the stranger helps him sit back up straight once he’s done dry-heaving, then presses the cool shape of a bottle of water into his hand.

“It’s unopened.” He points out to him. “Seal’s still intact, see? Sip it, you’ll feel better.”

Dick looks at the bottle to see that he’s telling the truth. It’s some cheap local Bludhaven brand, which means the water’s probably come straight out of the tap in someone’s kitchen sink rather than being filtered through volcanic rock out of a freshwater spring like the label promises, but it doesn’t matter. That outrageous claim might as well be true for how good the drink feels against his parched mouth and throat.

Though the temptation is to guzzle it is strong, Dick follows the instruction he was given. He sips the water, slow and careful instead, taking his time until the painful cramping in his belly gradually begins to ease.

“Sorry.” he whispers, noticing that Mr. No One is still hovering nearby, fists opening and closing like he’s torn between reaching over to touch him again or going out to find someone to punch. “I’m okay.”

No One shakes his head violently, the scarf over his nose almost slipping down before he quickly tugs it back up into place. “Don’t apologise. Don’t… don’t ever apologise for that, okay? Christ…”

They look at each other, and for a moment, Dick could swear there’s something familiar about the shape of the man’s eyes; the curling edges of his hair that tumble into view from underneath his hood with a few white strands now noticeable among the black. Not to mention the sound of his voice. Maybe it’s just the Gotham accent but...

He wishes he had a real name to call him by.

“Okay.” Dick repeats quietly. He screws the lid back on the bottle before wiping his mouth clean on the back of his arm. “Sor—I mean, I won’t.”

He has no idea what to say next. Nor what to do, really. He knows he should go home, face up to Bruce’s wrath. It won’t take long for the news of Blockbuster’s death to spread, and after what happened to Haly’s and his apartment building, he’ll know that Dick had to be involved in it somehow.

(And maybe if he’s honest about what happened up front, Bruce won’t be quite so furious with him after.)

He’s just so tired though. He feels like he could lie back down and sleep for years, nevermind days, curled up in a pile of blankets like Sleeping Beauty in her fortress of thorns.

“You can stay here for a while, if you want.” It’s like No One senses what he’s thinking. “Like I said, this place is empty. No one’s going to come looking for you here.”

Dick doesn’t think that would stop Bruce from finding him if he put his mind to it, but he still nods gratefully. “You don’t mind?”

“It’s not my house.” The man shrugs, standing up. “And I wasn’t really planning on sticking around anyway. I just… I just wanted to make sure you were okay before I left, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Dick says, confused by the odd mix of disappointment he feels at those words. He’s not sure if he’s ready to be alone again yet. “Now?”

“Yeah.” Those strange eyes flick down at him, seemingly regretful in their own right. “Sooner the better, really.”

He nods, because what right does he have to argue against that? None at all. Dick swallows and then starts to gather the jacket off his lap. “I guess you’ll be wanting this back then.”

No One is very still in front of him. A trained sort of calm that has the hairs on the back of Dick’s arms prickling beneath his suit. Then finally, he shakes his head. “You keep it, it’s cold in here.”

“Really?”

The leather is supple, worn in a lot of places, and Dick repeats his thought of it being well loved, cherished even, by its owner. It doesn’t seem right that he would be willing to let it go for the sake of someone who’s a veritable stranger.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” He shrugs, “Not really feeling the black anymore anyway. Might try something in brown next.”

It’s a poor excuse to shrug off what is obviously a hard loss, and that only serves to make Dick appreciate the gesture more. “I’ll pay you back for it someday.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Just promise me you’ll look after it, all right? And…” he hesitates, before barrelling on with what he means to say next, “And yourself. Take care of yourself as well.”

That he can do. The former one anyway. “I promise.”

“Good. I’ll be going then.” No One starts to stride away back to the stairs, and despite himself Dick can’t resist trying one more time to get a name out of him.

“Wait, are you sure there’s something I can’t call you?”

He sighs, stopping with one gloved hand resting on top of the rickety banister. “No, there’s really not.”

“Then will I see you around at least?”

The stranger’s back stiffens, like the question has startled him, before he’s shaking his head again and starting down the stairs. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

Once the sound of his footsteps has finally faded, Dick sinks back into the couch, tugging the leather jacket back over his chest and up to his mouth. The smell of cigarettes lingers even when everything else doesn’t.

 

*

 

It isn’t until a year later that he solves the mystery of the man who saved him that night. Another two after that before their situation is good enough that he’s able to work up the courage to catch up to and confront him about it.

“You left this with me.” Dick says quietly, after landing on the condemned rooftop where Jason’s sat smoking, staring out across the Gotham bay.

He’s alone, without the team of Outlaws Dick’s heard he’s been running with lately (his friends), and still wearing his domino across his eyes despite having taken off his red helmet to smoke. The raise of his head at Dick’s approach, however, is unmistakable. As is the lingering of the cigarette between his lips once he sees what it is he’s holding in his arms.

It had taken a little bit of digging for DIck to find the jacket out again from the depths of his closet in in the manor, where it had been carefully folded and put away in the weeks after he returned home following that fateful night. The leather still smelled faintly of cigarettes when he’d held it up to his nose, breathing in the matching scent to the brand Jason is holding between his fingers now. It was strangely comforting, even after all this time.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jason says quietly, but that’s all he says as Dick sits down beside him, swinging his legs out over the drop beneath.

“Really.” He smiles faintly, holding the jacket up in front of him, turning it this way and that so that Jason can see every detail, right down to the loose threads hanging off the bottom of the zipper. “You don’t recognise this at all?”

“Nope, just looks like a jacket to me. Kind of toned down for something you’d wear too. Good choice, maybe you can be taught better after all.”

“Jason, I know it was you that night.”

“What night?”

“Jason, please.”

Maybe it’s the subdued earnestness with which he says it, but Jason finally sighs before looking away from him. He takes one last drag of his cigarette, then flicks it away across the street after exhaling. “So what if it was?”

“So what if… _Jason_ , you _helped_ me. You… I can’t believe it was you there that night and you didn’t tell me.”

“Of course I didn’t tell you. Would have been hard to carry out my big fuck-up of a vengeance plan if you knew who I was back then, wouldn’t it?” Jason presses the heel of his right hand to his forehead. “Took a big enough risk doing what I did in the first place. Christ, leaving you the jacket was...”

Dick settles said jacket back down in his lap. “A mistake?”

“Yes. I mean no!” Jason looks sharply his way, then groans. “I mean… yes. Yes but no. You could have used it to… there were probably hair samples on it and everything. I didn’t think about that until after I’d already left. You could’ve fucked up everything for me if you’d only thought to look for them. Not that I didn’t end up doing that to myself anyway. ”

Yes, he could have. But he didn’t. For almost the exact same reasons Jason apparently left him the jacket in the first place. He didn’t think about it, not with Blockbuster’s death, Catalina Flores, and so many other more pressing matters spiralling around inside his head at the time.

If he had, maybe he could have saved them all a lot of pain, though Dick’s sure Jason wouldn’t think of it the same way.

“Jay…”

“Not what you wanted to hear from me, right?” He shakes his head before digging around in his jacket, pulling out a crumpled cigarette packet from within a hidden pocket. Jason grimaces as he opens up the box to see there’s only one left inside.

“I’m not expecting anything from you.” Dick says carefully, “I only wanted to return your jacket to you and… and I wanted to say thank you again, knowing who you are this time, and what you did for me.”

Jason pauses in the middle of lighting his cigarette. His shoulders do that hitching thing again, the same way they did on that night. The same way they did when he would get embarrassed as a kid. “... I told you, Dick, you don’t have to thank me. Not for that. I just did what was right.”

“You did. That’s _why_ I want to thank you. After what happened… when she...”

He still can’t really say it. Facing the knowledge that it had happened was bad enough, but saying the word aloud is for some reason harder still. Even now, his skin still sometimes crawls with the memory of the violation that had been visited upon him. Her hands. Her...

“I know, Dick.” The way Jason says his name this time is different to any way Dick’s ever heard him say it before. Tender, and accompanied by a wealth of painful understanding.

Understanding that Dick is grateful for, even as he wishes it was one thing they didn’t have to have in common between them.

He swallows thickly. “So, do I...do I want to ask what happened to Catalina Flores or…”

“Probably not.” Jason says shortly; a clear warning in his voice.

“Right,” His shoulders sag down, “I figured.” Her disappearance after murdering Blockbuster was another mystery solved by the Red Hood making his final move in Gotham. Dick knows he should be angry about that - there are no exceptions to their one rule, but mostly he just feels numb. Too numb to care.

Jason succeeds in lighting his cigarette, smoking through it in silence next to him as they watch the traffic move over the bridge between the city and the mainland together. Normally, Dick would move away in the face of it, conscious of what that smoke could be doing to his lungs, or at least scold Jason for not considering the effect it’s having on his own health. This time however, he just lets himself relax and breath the smell in, sharing the moment until finally there’s nothing but ashes left between Jason’s fingers.

He takes a deep breath, then turns to offer the jacket back to Jason once more, but a hand on his wrist stops him.

“It’s yours.” Jason says firmly, in a tone that says he won’t take no for an answer. “I gave it to you, so keep it. God knows you need it more than I do, wearing nothing but that skinny leotard all the time.”

Dick smiles, not-so-secretly relieved that he doesn’t really have to return it as he tugs the garment back into an embrace against his chest. “It’s not a leotard. Are you sure?”

“It is. And yeah, I insist.”

Jason stands up, readjusting the holsters of the guns at his thighs first, then the jacket on his shoulders. His helmet he picks up but doesn’t immediately put on as he starts to walk away to the opposite side of the roof.

Dick doesn’t try to stop him. He does however, have one last thing left to say before he lets him go. “Hey, Jay?”

“Yeah?” The suspicion with which Jason looks back at him makes him sad, even if it isn’t entirely unwarranted.

“Switching to brown was a good choice.” he nods at the jacket his little brother is currently wearing. “It looks good on you.”

Surprise softens Jason’s features, as does the light pink flush that steals across his cheeks and up his ears. A moment later it’s followed by a grin, brash and prideful like the one that used to belong to the teenager Dick so fondly remembers him being.

There’s no thank you spoken, but the salute he tosses at Dick before jumping over the side of the building is message enough.

After Jason’s left, Dick carefully shakes out the old jacket, then slips his arms in through the sleeves. The expanse of black leather, too big for him by at least two sizes, feels almost like an embrace wrapped around his shoulders.

And it still smells like cigarettes.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://firefrightfic.tumblr.com/)


End file.
